Various regulatory and technological developments have opened competition in the field of both local and long distance collect calls. The traditional method of initiating a collect call is to dial "0" plus the desired telephone number, and this call will be carried by the local exchange carrier (LEC) in the case of a local call, and by the interexchange carrier (IXC) to which the called party subscribes, in the case of a long distance call. To route the call using a particular long distance carrier, it is possible to prefix a collect call with an access code, such as 10288 in the case of AT&T. A further alternative is to make the collect call by dialing a predetermined toll free number, such as 1-800-CALL-ATT or 1-800-OPERATOR.
What is common to all of these variants is the fact that the calling party now has a choice of the carrier that will carry a collect telephone call, but the called party, who will pay for the collect call (if the call is accepted as a collect call) has no choice, and indeed, little or no advance information about the call.